For the last three years, UMBC students and faculty have been working on a project to safeguard the heritage of the Sparrows Point Steel Mill community and to amplify the voices and stories of the people who worked there.

As part of the ongoing project, Michelle Stefano, visiting assistant professor of American studies, Bill Shewbridge, professor of the practice of media and communication studies, and their students have recorded interviews with Sparrows Point workers and community members. The work has transformed into a documentary in response to feedback from the community to contextualize the individual steelworker stories and to build a broader narrative about what life was like at Sparrows Point.

The documentary Mill Storieshas been screened at film festivals both domestically and internationally. Most recently, On March 6, the film was screened in Baltimore at the Museum of Industry and it was covered in the local news media by WYPR’s Maryland Morning and the Baltimore Sun.

“It’s about promoting and keeping alive this living heritage,” Stefano told WYPR’s Tom Hall. “The significance of the mill and its history lives on in the minds and hearts of those who knew it.”